Grandi Manufacturing: Marco and Manuela follow in their father Giorgio’s footsteps at the helm of this prestigious businessItaliano

Grandi Manufacturing is a business that flies the Italian flag high in the South African business community, being testimony to the courage, commitment and untiring perseverance of those who were pioneers of the Italian community, making a huge contribution to development in South Africa and other countries alike. The secret of its success is its ability to make difficult things seem easy.

“Difficulties are an incentive, not a deterrent – says Marco Grandi from his office on the first floor of this family business in Paarden Eiland – The more difficult the job, the more stimulated we are to produce outstanding workmanship”.

It’s a language of a bygone era where entrepreneurs and their business were one and when the pride of being a “family business” and being part of the elite Italian entrepreneurs reflected in the choice to overcome the competition in terms of quality of product and trust of the client. This is a language spoken daily at Grandi Manufacturing and it is translated into prestigious contracts and a level of trust that permits clients to give us carte blanche.

“The client explains what he would like and we make it. He knows that the quality is of a high standard and the price is fair”, say Marco and Manuela, who are respectively responsible for the technical and administrative division of the business, inherited from their late father, Giorgio Grandi, who died prematurely in March 1999, at the age of 67 years.

The history of this business dates back to Giorgio Grandi, even though the most recent chapters have been written by his children, who are the first to admit that they, together are, an extension of the personality and inexhaustible energies of their father. “I have inherited the love for order and precision and I take care of administration and finance – says Manuela – whereas Marco has a natural technical and mechanical skill, thereby making the decisions in this field”. But the artistic talent has been inherited from their mother, Dolores, who pursued a successful career as fashion designer.